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January 30, 2011

January Round-Up

January has been a bitch of a month here. By early January it seemed like the rain would never stop. There was no sunshine, no birds, just rain and wind. Now, I love all that wet weather, but I found that even I have my limits on how wet it should be. We've were housebound for a week. The ground was so saturated that even walking on it was like walking on mud. There was no way the cars were coming out of the shed.
As you would have seen on the news, January 10, 2011 was a horror day for Queensland. I was at home watching the news when the wall of water swept through Toowoomba and down the Lochyer Valley towards Brisbane. Unfortunately this coincided with more water released from Wivenhoe Dam (which was sitting at 192% capacity) and king tides to ensure that Brisbane would see it's first major flooding event since 1974. Now, my mum lived through '74. She lost everything but her cat, and I'm so thankful that we were nowhere near those areas. I don't think mum could have gone through it again.

heading south - on route to shopping centre

local shopping centre - shops actually built on raised ground!

Up till the 19th, we'd measured over 19 inches of rain. That doesn't include the deluge we've had since November last year, or the storms since the 19th. This is the wettest month that I can remember. If it continues like this everything will be damp and mouldy.... eww. And to top it all off there is a cyclone - a hurricane to those in the US - that is set to hit around Townsville on Monday, and another forming off Fiji that should also head our way. We just can't seem to get a break at the moment. If it's not flooding here, and in Victoria, then it's bushfires in Western Australia and heatwaves in Adelaide!

Over the last week it seemed like the clouds had finally run out of water to dump on us. It's been hot and muggy (thanks to the ground being waterlogged), but it was nice to have the sun on your face. Now today, the 30th, seems to be a reminder that the weather can so easily change. It was sunny this morning, now it's overcast and looks like more rain! Geez, what am I.... a duck!